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WALLOPS ISLAND, VA – NASA has rescheduled the launch of five suborbital sounding rockets from the Wallops Facility in Virginia as part of a study of the upper level jet stream to no earlier than Sunday morning March 25.

Tonight’s launch attempt was postponed because of poor weather conditions. A criteria for launch is clear skies not only at Wallops but also at viewing sites in New Jersey and North Carolina. Clouds at all three sites prevented tonight’s launch attempt.

A decision on a March 25 launch attempt will be made this afternoon.

The Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment (ATREX) will gather information needed to better understand the process responsible for the high-altitude jet stream located 60 to 65 miles above the surface of the Earth.

As part the mission, the five rockets will release a chemical tracer that will form milky, white clouds that allow scientists and the public to “see” the winds in space. These clouds may be visible for up to 20 minutes by residents from South Carolina to southern New Hampshire and Vermont.

More information on the ATREX mission is available on the Internet at:

See the ATREX rocket trajectories in Google Earth!
Keyhole Markup Language (KML) files are zipped into what’s known as a KMZ. When this is put into Google Earth, you can see the path the rockets will take.
Download this KMZ (above) of the ATREX trajectories to see them in Google Earth on your computer or mobile device.
When open in Google Earth, click the small clock in the upper left of the player “to toggle time slider animation”. This will show a time lapse of each rocket launch.
If you don’t have Google Earth, download a copy here:
google.com/earth